


Hate Me Like You Do

by hurt_mod, shine_alive (orphan_account)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anger Management, Depression, Dubious Consent, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Obsession, Obsessive Behavior, Post-Hogwarts, Rough Sex, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 06:35:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3640410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hurt_mod/pseuds/hurt_mod, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/shine_alive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the war, Draco was forced to hurt Harry. Ten years later, they meet again—and again, and again. Harry uses his hatred as a shield, because it’s so much easier to hate than to love and forgive. Draco revels in Harry’s hatred and craves more of it, becoming addicted to it, because he would rather have hatred and pain than nothing at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hate Me Like You Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Writcraft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writcraft/gifts).



> Thanks to MKML for beta-ing and giving me feedback throughout the wee hours of the night. Writcraft, I do hope you enjoy reading this!

“Harder.”

Draco flinched at the command but obeyed, pushing Potter’s thighs apart with his knees and slamming back inside his arse as hard as he dared. Potter groaned, his voice muffled by his gag and the hard table-top on which he lay, face-down with his wrists bound behind his back. 

At Potter’s strained voice and weak struggling, Draco tried not to vomit.

“I said _harder_ , didn’t you hear?” snapped Yaxley, exasperated. Draco turned his head slightly to see the fair-haired man leaning against the wall, rolling his eyes. 

In the doorway stood Narcissa, her lips pressed in a thin line, lines deepening around her eyes. Draco closed his eyes and turned around again, willing his prick not to go soft.

He was supposed to enjoy this; everyone was supposed to want a piece of Potter’s arse.

“Honestly, Draco,” continued Yaxley, “you aren’t punishing the boy at all. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you two were boyfriends.” He laughed a little to himself. “But you’re not a man either, are you, our little Malfoy baby? Perhaps I should—”

“No,” said Draco quickly, too quickly. He coughed, readjusting his sweaty hands’ grip on Harry’s hips. “I want to be the one to fuck him up.”

“That’s right.” Draco could hear the smile on Yaxley’s face as he spoke. “Now show it.”

Draco’s hips resumed their thrusting, his bony hips slamming against the flesh of Potter’s arse hard enough to bruise. When Potter moaned again and begin to thrash about, Draco fisted his fingers into Potter’s hair and slammed his head down against the table with a sickening _thud_.

Potter flinched once, and stopped resisting.

“That’s more like it.” Yaxley’s voice had gotten thin and breathy, and Draco risked another glance over his shoulder to see Yaxley with the front of his trousers undone, his hand down the front. “Keep going, now, don’t stop.”

“I would appreciate if you didn’t look at my son that way,” interjected Narcissa, her voice sharp as a whip. 

Yaxley scowled but shoved his hands into his pockets instead. “Your boy’s nothing special,” he retorted. “He’d be nothing at all if the Dark Lord hadn’t taken mercy on your lot.” His lips curled at the word _mercy_.

“Are you implying that the Dark Lord made a mistake?” asked Narcissa, her voice cold with a veiled threat. “That he was wrong?”

Yaxley looked away. “No,” he muttered. 

Draco threw his head back and moaned as he thrust inside Harry one last time, not because he came, but because he’d gone soft. Before Yaxley’s attention fully returned to him, he lifted his hand and mimicked a cleaning spell to disguise the lack of come inside Potter’s arse.

“Why’d you do that?” asked Yaxley, standing up from where he had been slouching against the wall. “Didn’t want precious Potter to stay dirty?”

“Hardly,” said Draco, tucking himself back in. “Didn’t want to make a mess around the house, that’s all.”

“Well, if we were a little messy, we’d just have the Boy Who Lived clean it up, wouldn’t we?” asked Yaxley, pulling out his wand and lifting Potter up in the air, turning him onto his back so that his nakedness—his bruises and cuts, the discolorations along his joints and face, his blackened eye—glared at Draco in the harsh light. “With his tongue.”

Draco wondered if it galled Yaxley to know that the heir of the still-somewhat-disgraced Malfoy family knew more wandless magic than him. If it bothered him, he hid it well.

Potter looked up at Draco as he floated past. Draco met his gaze, swallowing. Beneath the swollen eyelids and the general battered state of his face, Potter’s eyes glared with an accusatory fury.

_It’s not my fault,_ Draco wanted to say.

When Yaxley and Potter had gone from the room, Draco turned to Narcissa. “Mother,” he began wearily.

Narcissa lifted a finger to her lips, and Draco went quiet. He knew what she meant; in their family home, which the Dark Lord had turned into his own domain, the walls had ears.

Her hand rested on his shoulder, giving a soft squeeze as they left the room too. “Come, now,” she said. “We have more work to do.”

~*~*~

In the end, nothing really mattered.

The resistance to the Dark Lord’s forces had come out in greater forces than anyone had expected, but Voldemort himself hadn’t cared, because he had Hogwarts in the palm of his hand as Hagrid the half-giant had wept a stream of stupid, futile tears over Harry’s battered body. He’d been careless in his victory, never realizing that he’d been tricked until Harry seemingly came back from the dead and jumped out of Hagrid’s arms and the courtyard erupted into deadly chaos once more.

Narcissa had flinched, and Draco looked up to see her and Lucius exchange a panicked look. But Draco remembered the precise moment in which the hesitance in his father’s eyes solidify into steely resolve. He reached for Narcissa’s hand.

_Draco,_ Narcissa had mouthed.

He had obeyed, coming to stand next to his mother and feeling her shaky hand grab his forearm.

The last thing he remembered before they Apparated was his aunt’s voice, calling curses down on their family.

The rest of the story he’d heard over the course several days as the Ministry called on them to testify in exchange for a reduced sentence: Lucius to five years in a minimum-security holding cell, Narcissa two years of house arrest, and Draco two years on parole. Their leniency surprised Draco, but then again, it shouldn’t have. After all, the Malfoys were no longer key players in this narrative; the wizarding world cared that Harry Potter had killed Voldemort, that he and his Gryffindor friends had secured a safe future. The Malfoys were mildly despised but mostly pitied, and in time, they became nobodies.

Draco thought this was for the best. He wanted nothing except to start anew, to pretend that the past few years were simply a nightmare from which he had woken up.

~*~*~

All he had wanted was to be ordinary.

Four months after the trials, Gringotts hired him as a financial analyst, and he sat at a desk all day, crunching numbers and giving reports. The job paid well, his superiors tolerated him, and the goblins hated them, but they hated everyone who wasn’t a goblin.

He learned to smile politely at work and smile reassuringly when he visited Narcissa at home and Lucius in prison. They believed he was living a charmed life with significant others who came and went, let his bosses believe that he was the model employee who never brought personal baggage to the workplace.

In reality, he had no lovers and no friends, just a cold, small flat with a barrenness and coldness that reflected him. Pansy Parkinson and Theodore Nott didn’t count—they were more business partners than mates, she in Gringotts R&D and he a clerk in the Ministry of Finances. They met occasionally for drinks as they made small talk, mostly about work or the weather or some other trite topic as they huddled together, the only ones who knew what it was like to be _tolerated_ by the winners.

After two years of the dull life Draco craved, Narcissa suddenly fell ill, feverish and sweating, and no Healer or potion or Muggle pill could save her. She died less than a week after falling ill, and Lucius never returned home; a day after news of Narcissa’s death reached him, he was found hanging from a rope of tied-together bedsheets in his cell.

A month after that, Draco drank himself into a stupor and tried to kill himself.

With wand-slits at his wrists, he slowly sank to his knees in a dark, deserted alley in the early hours of the morning, resolving to die, for he had no parents to support and no friends of consequence and no one to live for anymore.

A woman found him while his blood drained from his body, stumbling upon his paling form as she returned. She seemed intoxicated, but touched his cool hands, the pooling blood on his arm, his Dark Mark, and knitted his skin together.

He never thanked her—he didn’t even know her name. The next day, he Flooed in sick to work, and the day after that, returned to his office as if nothing had changed.

It didn’t take long for Pansy and Theo to notice the marks on his wrists.

“How could you even think of doing this?” she screeched when his shirtsleeves rode up just a little bit and she held his arm in a vice grip, looking with disbelief at the healing scars. “Of all people, Draco, I thought you would want to live! We’ve come this far—you can’t just—you have so much live for, so much ahead…”

Draco had just nodded, trying to look solemn, trying not to roll his eyes at the absurdity of her assertion.

Theo had just stared at his wrists for a while, then said, “Don’t do that again, Draco, we mean it.”

Draco had just nodded and ordered another drink, feeling its bitter burn slide down his throat as he tried to be anywhere but here.

~*~*~

Ten years after the trials, Draco had quashed his inner demons, for he was consistently able convince himself that he had money, he had the Manor, even if he didn’t live in it, and that was all he could possibly desire out of his life.

Tonight, like most Friday nights, he layered a couple of simple Glamours on his face until he was unrecognizable, looking like a dark-haired young man of twenty or twenty-one with full lips and pretty blue eyes.

Apparating to central London, he walked the short distance from the Muggle-filled part of the city to the wizarding district he frequented, and into a club.

He lost himself in places like this, pretending to be someone he wasn’t, someone without a Dark Mark on his arm, someone that other handsome wizards wanted to dance with and take home. He’d decline that last bit, but he felt good, _validated_ , in knowing that he could have his pick of the sweaty, sensual bodies.

He downed one drink and sipped the next one more slowly, relishing the slow warmth of Firewhisky entering his bloodstream.

Discreetly, he waved his hand, and muttered an incantation he’d learned years ago. “ _Imago Revelio_.”

The spell had been perfected for Voldemort’s Army many years ago, because a few wanted wizards and witches knitted water-tight disguises and Glamours. Alecto Carrow had crafted this particular spell, meant to melt away nearly every type of magical disguise possible, save for the Polyjuice Potion, the effects of which would disappear in time anyway.

The edges of Draco’s vision blurred and sparkled for a moment before his eyes refocused, and he could see the club-goers’ true faces now. He did this as a precaution, a necessity, to make sure that there were no old acquaintances or potential enemies in the crowd before he plunged in. His eyes scanned every face on the floor.

Satisfied, he turned back to finish his drink—and froze.

At the other end of the bar, nursing a drink alone, sat Harry Potter.

His disguise had really been overkill, for Draco had remembered a tall, skinny, dirty blond man sitting in that very seat before he’d muttered the incantation. Potter, short and brunet and well-muscled, stared at the shiny stone surface of the bar as he tapped his finger absently against the side of his glass.

He hadn’t seen Potter since the battle, but recognized his face immediately—after all, Potter was a public figure, a celebrity, a guarded and nearly reclusive man of whom everyone still wanted a piece.

Draco thought him a ponce, disguising himself to come here like a prince among commoners, no doubt drinking away his perceived sorrows. But his anger deflated quickly. He didn’t envy Potter’s luxuries or fame. He didn’t. He had a job, a place to live, a decent reputation—he asked for nothing more.

Potter, glanced up and met Draco’s eyes. Draco maintained his gaze for a moment before he slid from his seat, taking his drink with him, and walked toward Potter, whose expression changed from one of guardedness to curiosity.

He sat next to him. “Hi.”

Potter blinked, then looked down. He shifted in his seat and ran his finger up and down the side of his glass. He was _nervous_ , Draco realized, scared that a stranger had just approached him, afraid that his cover would be blown. “Hey,” said Potter.

Draco lifted his feet onto the first rung of the bar stool. His knees knocked against Potter’s. “What’s a bloke like you doing all alone?” he asked. Potter’s face flushed, and he chuckled nervously, taken aback at Draco’s forwardness.

He was flirting with _Harry Potter_ , Draco realized, and downed the rest of the glass.

“Maybe I like being alone,” Potter said.

“Well, you shouldn’t be.” Reaching out one hand, Draco rested it on Potter’s thigh, just above his knee, and squeezed. His fingers trailed up, up, until Potter grabbed his wandering hand in a tight, bruising grip.

“What do you want?” he asked, leaning in close. Draco could feel him, could smell him. He shook his arm, but Potter wouldn’t let go.

“I want you,” he replied, looking up from under his lashes.

“You don’t know who I am.” Potter’s grip loosened slightly, but still held Draco’s wrist captive. “You haven’t spoken two words with me.”

“But I do know who you are,” countered Draco.

Potter’s eyes narrowed, taken aback. “No, you don’t.”

Draco slid off his seat and stood between Potter’s legs, his free hand resting on his stomach, leaning in to whisper in his ear, “Yes, I do, and I’m not afraid.” He placed an open-mouthed kiss on Potter’s jaw, licking the skin there, tasting the salt of his skin. “I still want you. Inside me.”

He could feel Potter’s breaths quickening, the little jerk of his body as Draco’s words aroused him. “My place or yours?” asked Potter.

Draco was going to sleep with him. Draco was going to get fucked by Harry Potter, the hero of the wizarding world, the boy he’d raped on Yaxley’s orders ten years ago. Draco was going to get fucked by Potter, and no one would ever know. He felt dizzy.

“Mine,” he said faintly.

“Take us there.”

Draco closed his eyes and Apparated them both out of the club and into his small, bare flat.

Perhaps he was still drunk on his liquor or intoxicated by Potter’s presence and heat, but when they arrived in his bedroom, it took him a few seconds to gain his bearings after Apparating, and by then, Potter had already flung him against a wall and cast a wordless spell to bind his wrists together, high above his head.

“What are you—”

“You can stop pretending now,” said Potter conversationally. “What’s your name?”

“My name,” gasped Draco. “My name…Richard Anderson.” His heart beat heavy in his chest, and he flailed, afraid and indignant that he was bound up and powerless in his own room. He tried to sever his bindings wandlessly, but they remained taut. “Let me go!”

“You’re lying,” said Potter. “I won’t let you go until I find out why you’ve tried to lure me to this place.”

He took out his wand and muttered an incantation that Draco, petrified by his terror, couldn’t recognize.

“Glamours, Glamours, more Glamours,” said Potter, sounding smug. “I was right, you _did_ conceal your appearance.”

“Yeah, a lot of people do, when they go out!” hissed Draco. “It’s _normal_. Even you did it. It’s not my fault I’m good enough to get around your shitty disguise.”

“I hope, for your sake, that you’re an exceptionally crazy fan.” Potter leaned in, green eyes gleaming. “If you’re up to something Dark, you won’t be walking out of here.”

Draco swallowed. “Potter, please, don’t—”

Potter leaned back and waved his wand, slashing through the air, and Draco jerked as he felt his Glamours crack and fall to pieces. Potter stepped back in recognition and shock, his wand arm falling to his side, as he stared wide-eyed at Draco. 

“Draco Malfoy,” he said quietly.

“That’s me,” said Draco quietly, sagging in his invisible bonds. “What are you going to do now?”

“What am I going to do?” whispered Potter, seething with rage, and Draco’s blood ran cold at the palpable fury in his voice. “You have the audacity to speak to me?”

“I—I’m sorry,” said Draco miserably, “but it wasn’t my fault, they made me—”

He broke off with a gasp as Potter grabbed his shoulder and pulled him away from the wall before slamming him back against it.

“I don’t want to hear it,” snarled Potter, his eyes darkening. “Nothing will make you any less of a rapist and murderer.” He leaned in close, and Draco shrank away from the madness and anger etched in his face. “You never got what you deserved, but it’s coming for you.”

Draco went limp in Potter’s crushing grip.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Are you going to take me down?”

“I’m going to make you hurt like you should have been for the past ten years.” Potter released Draco’s shoulder and shoved his head against the wall, and Draco screamed as his skull hit the wall with a sickening thud and pain bloomed from the back of his head. Potter yanked him from where he stood and kicked him onto the bed, where he fell ungracefully onto his stomach, the bonds re-formed to tie his hands behind his back.

He tried to crane his neck to look at Potter behind him. Without his hands, he was powerless, he lost all control he had over this situation, and that frightened him.

Potter’s large hand grabbed the back of his neck and ground his face into the mattress. Draco’s clothes Vanished, and he heard Potter undo his belt and pull down his jeans. Strong, solid thighs shoved his bare legs apart, and tears stung at his eyes as he began to shake from the humiliation and the fear, his legs spread and his arse on display for Potter’s eyes and hands and prick.

The spells for lubrication swept through Draco, leaving him squirming and whimpering, his arse dripping.

“I’m too good to you,” muttered Potter, chuckling darkly, and Draco felt the tip of his erect prick pressing against his entrance. “Scum like you don’t deserve anything to make it feel better.”

“Potter—”

“You _deserve_ to hurt.” Potter shoved in hard, filling Draco, before immediately pulling out and pushing in again.

Draco cried out, his legs shaking, tears flowing from his eyes now. It had been too long since he’d had a prick inside him, and Potter’s prick was wide, too wide, fucking too hard.

As Potter kept fucking him, fast and brutal, Draco couldn’t believe how badly he wanted more of Potter, more of his anger and his pain. It was the last situation in which he thought he’d be desperately aroused—Merlin, he was powerless in his own bed, practically held captive. He began grinding his hips into the sheets. 

“Harder,” he begged, and the voice that escaped his lips did not belong to him, it was too carnal and needy and wanton. “Please, Potter—”

“You’re enjoying it, are you?” gasped Potter behind him, the fingers of one hand digging into his left arse cheek, gripping it tightly, and Draco bucked. “That won’t do.”

Potter’s hands came up to grip Draco’s head, still sore from slamming against the wall. His fingers tangled in Draco’s thin, white-blond hair, and shoved him into the mattress, and held him there.

He couldn’t breathe. Potter still fucked him with an impossible strength, bringing him impossible pain, and Draco’s nose and mouth were pressed against the sheets, his lungs unable to fill.

Potter made these _noises_ , the pants and unrestrained grunts and “Fuck you, Malfoy, fuck fuck _fuck,_ ” and Draco felt delirious, suffocating and on the verge of coming simply from being pounded by Potter alone.

Flashes of lights and colourful spots began to dance at the edge of his vision. He went pliant, soft under Potter’s grip, still faintly aware of Potter’s thick prick inside him.

Draco was going to die. Draco was going to suffocate and die while Potter fucked him to death. 

Potter let out a drawn-out, rumbling moan, and came.

As his come emptied into Draco, his hands slowly released Draco’s head, and he lifted his nose and mouth from the bed, gasping and choking for want of air. 

He rolled onto his back, his own prick still hard and straining, his face still flushed, and saw Potter with his eyes averted, pulling up his own pants and trousers, smoothing out his shirt.

“Potter—”

“I don’t understand.” Potter looked at him, then, no longer so furious but still suspicious and angry. “You and your lot raped me. You killed me. I couldn’t believe it when you weren’t sent to Azkaban. What did you do to get out of it?”

“Yaxley died,” whispered Draco, closing his eyes as unwanted sights and smells and feelings returned to him, memories of months and months of torture he had suppressed for so long. “So did Mulciber, and the Carrows, and the rest of them. No one brought these up as charges and—and—you didn’t attend any of the trials, and—”

“Maybe I should have.” Potter’s lip curled. “Maybe it’s not too late.”

Draco’s heart froze. “No,” he breathed. “No, Potter, please, you can’t.”

“I can. And they would believe me, you know that, and they’d put you into Azkaban even after all these years if I wanted them to.”

“I know,” whispered Draco. “You mustn’t, please, you’d kill me with it—” He reached out his hand to grab Potter, to shake him, but Potter jerked away from his touch.

Still naked and dishevelled, Draco slid from the bed to the floor, kneeling at Potter’s feet. “Don’t do this,” he begged. “You could tear me down with this, you know that. I know that. But don’t. _Please_.”

He dared to peek up at Potter’s face and saw a sneer and mild disgust and a trace of satisfaction. The prick, Draco thought privately; seeing Draco debase himself probably turned him on. But he kept his face contrite and utterly pitiful, and Potter stepped back.

“Then you’ll be ready for me, if you don’t want to go to court again,” said Potter, turning away. “I’m not done with you yet.”

With a crack, he Apparated from Draco’s flat.

Draco rose from the floor of his bedroom and fell back onto his bed, head spinning. Potter had just fucked him and threatened to tear his entire carefully-built, wonderfully nondescript existence down with one word from his stupid, ugly, gorgeous mouth. He lay on his back, his arse throbbing from Potter’s rough fucking and sticky with Potter’s come.

His fingers trailed down to his own prick, still erect and leaking, and began to stroke up and down.

Nothing Potter could ever say would stop Draco’s hand, moving faster and faster, desperately stroking and rubbing as his hips jutted upward into the air. He closed his eyes and thought of Potter’s violence and his green, green eyes, flashing with disgust and hatred and _want_ as he manhandled Draco and abused his pliant, willing flesh. No one had ever looked at him with that level of intensity, that emotion and passion, for the last decade—and he craved more.

He held on to the image of Potter’s body, cruel and taut. His arse still tightened at the memory of his fingers digging into their soft, sensitive globes—he would have bruises there, purple and blue and black and all over—and he thought of Potter at the bar as he came with a strangled cry, all over his hand and stomach and chest, squeezing his eyes shut and seeing Potter’s face imprinted on the back of his eyelids.

Potter came again three nights later. 

Draco had been sitting at his kitchen table, clean and warm in his bathrobe after a shower, drinking tea and reviewing records from work, when Potter knocked on his door.

Nervously, he set down his tea and rolled up the parchments, and answered the door.

Potter stood, his face impassive, his broad shoulders the angles of his face illuminated by the warm light spilling from Draco’s kitchen. Without a word, he pushed inside, and Draco shut and locked the door behind them.

“We can go to my room,” he suggested.

“No, I want to fuck you here,” said Potter, throwing his coat carelessly onto a pristine leather couch. “Strip.”

“Here?”

Potter sighed, a drawn-out, exasperated sound, and pulled out his wand. “ _Evanesco_.”

Draco shivered as his bathrobe disappeared, leaving him suddenly bare. “I rather liked that robe,” he said, carefully maintaining a neutral tone. “It’s gone, now.”

“Cry all you want,” replied Potter, taking off his own shirt. “You should have been quicker.”

The nonchalance, the irritation rather than anger in Potter’s voice worried Draco. He had anticipated the same unrestrained fury from three days before, the utter hatred mingled with desire and lust. Now, Potter just seemed…calm.

Draco wanted Potter out of control, consumed by the feelings and wants that threatened to consume Draco and strip him raw.

“I bet you’d like that,” said Draco, goading him on. “Bet you’d like to see me cry.”

Potter didn’t snap. “I’ll make sure you do,” he said.

Draco huffed and began walking to the couch when Potter grabbed his arm and dragged him to the kitchen instead.

He threw Draco down. The mug fell to the floor and shattered. Potter swept the pieces aside with his wand and knocked the Gringotts records on the table to the floor, scattering them.

Draco turned around to face Potter, propping his arms behind him and lifting his legs onto the table to spread himself open. He didn’t miss the flash of desire across Potter’s face, the brief quiver of his lips, as his eyes eagerly took in what Draco offered him.

“Fuck me face to face, Potter,” said Draco.

“I don’t want to see your face,” said Potter. “I hate your face. It’s a disgusting face, the face of a coward, a liar, it’s disgusting—” Almost frantically, he worked the front of his pants open, letting his prick loose, desperately stroking it until it was fully erect, the head dark and shiny and wanting. Draco bit his lip on a whimper, seeing Potter’s hard prick for the first time. His own twitched to life, and his hand lazily stroked it.

“I hate you,” Potter was gasping, and he used it as a mantra now as he shoved Draco’s legs even wider together and dragged him to the very edge of the table. The painful friction against the skin of Draco’s arse would leave burn marks on the pale skin there, next to the yellowing bruises, but Draco didn’t care. “I hate you, I hate your face and your dirty, dirty fucking arse, I hate you—”

“Yes,” Draco gasped, letting the words flow through him. His blood sang with Potter’s emotion, with his passion. “Say it again. Tell me how much you hate me.”

“I _hate_ —” Potter punctuated the word by slamming two fingers inside Draco, stretching him wider and wider, and Draco cried out, fingers curling uselessly against the cold, slippery surface of the table “—you. You’re a useless coward, a traitor, pathetic and ugly, scum like you don’t deserve to live, how could anyone see you and not hate you—”

“Please,” Draco begged.

“Fuck.” Potter slammed inside Draco.

Draco grabbed onto Potter’s wide shoulders, rippling with strength and muscle he’d longed to touch ever since his shirt came off, but Potter didn’t seem to care as he slammed into Draco again and again, and Draco held on tighter, throwing his head back as he rode the wave of Potter’s fury and desire.

“Need it,” Draco whispered. “Need you.” Without thinking, he pulled in close and kissed Potter on the lips, tasting the mouth and tongue that starred in his fantasies the past three days as he rubbed himself off time and time again. 

Potter tasted like smoke and wine and something more, but Draco couldn’t identify it before Potter’s hand gripped his chin in a vice grip and jerked his head back.

He’d stopped fucking Draco. He glared at him while Draco’s lips parted, body tensed for Potter’s fist in his face or—worse.

Potter spit.

The glob hit Draco’s cheek, splattering his eyelashes, warm and slimy and degrading. Draco’s mouth fell open and he reached up to wipe the saliva from his face, but Potter’s fingers closed around his neck and shoved him down.

The back of his head hit the sharp edge of the table and he cried out, splitting pain slicing across his scalp, warm liquid beginning to spill out into his hair. Potter held him there, head slightly off the table, unable to see Potter or anything other than the stark whiteness of the wall.

Draco’s eyes welled from the pain, but his cock was harder than ever, and he stroked it and stroked it as Potter fucked him, lifting his legs over his shoulders to slam into Draco deeper and deeper. Draco’s thumb ran over the tip of his own prick and he shivered. Potter’s hips slammed into the flesh of Draco’s arse, an obscene, rhythmic sort of slapping. Draco was sure he would sport bruises from Potter’s hip bones, as well as the other marks already impressed on his skin. 

He heard the _drip, drip_ of his own blood against the tile floor and groaned. Potter reached forward to yank at a fistful of Draco’s hair. His hand came away smeared with blood, and he wiped it on Draco’s torso.

Potter came, and so did Draco, spilling white all over his stomach and hand.

As Draco lay, exhausted and dizzy from blood loss, Potter’s hands turned him over onto his stomach. Warmth began to radiate from his searing wound as Potter healed it, siphoning away the blood and knitting together the flesh.

“Thank you,” said Draco when he finished, turning to sit on his bottom again.

Potter looked away and pulled up his jeans. He liked to fuck Draco while still wearing jeans. Draco supposed it made him feel powerful.

“Don’t,” said Potter, and left.

Over the next few days, Draco could not sit down at his kitchen table without thinking about Potter’s cock pounding him, the pain that stung him as Potter became angry, his actions when he lost control. He jerked himself off while he ate his omelettes and drank his tea and pored over paperwork, and his head was filled with more and more of Potter.

The next time Potter came, he made Draco suck him off, pinning him against the wall with his knees and fucking his mouth just like he had fucked Draco’s other hole.

Draco hadn’t sucked anyone’s prick in a long time, either, and he choked the first time Potter tried to push down his throat. He came up spluttering, coughing, eyes red and teary as he looked up at Potter imploringly, but Potter simply grabbed a fistful of his hair, yanked his head down, and shoved in again, using Draco’s hot, wet, tight throat for his own pleasure.

It ended with Draco on his knees, come and spit smeared all over his face and dripping onto his chest as he tried not to gag and vomit while Potter Apparated away.

~*~*~

Draco couldn’t get enough of Potter, and he tried not to let it show, but he needed him and his poisonous words and his rough hands all over. He wondered how he had ever found himself content with his life before, the mundane, monotonous routine of work and sleep interspersed with occasional drinks and rutting against other wizards like werewolves in heat—or like teenagers. Potter was the missing piece, the cure to his apathy.

Potter came over more and more frequently until he spent nearly every night at Draco’s flat, Draco’s knee over his shoulder, his prick in Draco’s arse. He spoke less and less, only occasionally reminding Draco of how despicable and disgusting he was, but Draco didn’t mind, for his eyes burned with desire and hate and so much want, and that was enough for Draco. Potter, hero and beloved of all, wanted him so badly that he came every night to ruin him, and the thought made him shiver with excitement and brought him to climax. 

“You could stay the night,” suggested Draco one night, flopping onto his side and staring at Potter’s limp body beside his in bed.

Potter’s brows knitted together. “Don’t be daft,” he muttered, his voice thick with exhaustion. “You’d probably kill me in my sleep, being the snake you are.”

“I would not,” protested Draco. “And I’m just saying this because it is now…” he rolled over to look at his nightstand, “four in the morning and you fucked me as many times.”

“Ridiculous. I’m not staying over,” grumbled Potter.

Draco shrugged and tried to look nonchalant, rolling over to his side with his thoroughly bruised and scratched back toward Potter. After Potter shifted around a little bit, he left, and Draco hugged his pillow tighter.

When Potter was gone, Draco’s want for him was so strong that he dreamt of him when he slept, thought of his cock taking and taking from Draco even as he tossed and turned at night. 

After that, Potter didn’t come for a week.

With each day that went by without seeing Potter, Draco broke down more. For the first three days, he wanked a lot, the images of Potter filling his head making his climaxes all too easy. 

Things went downhill beginning on the fourth day; he became restless during the day and sleepless at night. It hurt to sit at the kitchen table, where Potter had taken him and wrecked him, so he skipped meals.

Potter’s shoulders were so broad, thought Draco, so strong, capable of inflicting so much harm. And yet, when he pressed down on Draco from above while fucking him into the mattress, his body felt like a blanket, a measure of safety and security, even if he did yank Draco’s hair and bite his flesh until he bled and called him nasty things with his swollen lips. He wanted Potter there, with him, to make him feel safety and pain and everything else.

On the fifth night, Draco screamed Potter’s name into his pillow once, then went limp, unable to think about anything except Potter, Potter, Potter.

Maybe he wasn’t coming back. He was probably sick of Draco, and that’s why he stopped saying things like “I hate you” and “I need to hurt you” and “You deserve nothing but the worst, Malfoy.” He had stopped hating Draco, and now Draco couldn’t have any part of Potter at all, because Draco had served his purpose, and Potter wouldn’t come back anymore.

He made several mistakes at work—transferred the wrong dataset into a statistical model for a presentation the next Monday, miscalculated the expected complex interests on several wealthy families’ accounts, and spilled a cup of coffee all over a folder of customer complaints—and received a stern warning from his superior.

“I expect you to come back on Monday at your best,” said Goldsworthy, rubbing his balding scalp tiredly. “What’s the matter with you, Mr. Malfoy? Where’s that sharp mind gone to?” He rapped the side of his own head. “You’ve been as slow as a slug lately.”

“My apologies, sir,” mumbled Draco. “Problems at home, that’s all.”

Goldsworthy looked at him with suspicion. It was common knowledge that Lucius and Narcissa had passed long ago, and Draco never mentioned any romantic interests, nor wore a ring on his finger.

“Well, then,” he finally said. “Best sort those out soon, eh? We’ll want you completely back after the weekend.”

Draco bought a bottle of vodka on the way home and sat on his couch and drank.

It slid down his throat, bitter, like Potter’s come when Draco sucked him off, except Potter’s come tasted so much better, and the look on his face when Draco brought him to the edge and pushed him over—so much sweeter than any relief alcohol could bring.

He poured another glass. 

His insides felt warmer. His mind felt slower, more sluggish, but pleasantly so. He poured another. But if Potter were here, thought Draco, if he were here, Draco wouldn’t need alcohol to feel this way. When Potter pinned Draco down with his body, Draco could feel his heat, smell his skin, and that would turn Draco woozier than ten bottles of vodka.

He poured another. 

Three sharp raps came from his door.

“Merlin,” he breathed. Potter stood outside his door, his hair damp from the misty rain outside. “Come inside, it’s cold, it’s raining.” He grabbed Potter’s sleeve, afraid that he would vanish.

“Draco,” said Potter, and it was the first time he’d called him _Draco_. “Are you drunk?”

“No. Yes. I think so.” Draco slammed the door shut behind him and began stripping Potter’s jacket off, then unbuttoning his shirt. “Why were you gone so long? I thought you weren’t going to come back, I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”

“Let me.” Potter batted Draco’s hands off and unbuttoned the rest himself. Draco’s hands fluttered around nervously before settling on taking off his own clothes. “I tried to stay away, but I couldn’t—I want you. I need to fuck you until you scream.”

“Yes,” Draco breathed, feeling light-headed with relief. “I want you to fuck me.”

They stumbled into the bedroom, Draco sucking at Potter’s throat as Potter repeatedly shoved him away and nipped at his skin. Potter fell on Draco, slamming him to the bed, and Draco could have wept at this feeling that he’d been needing for so long. Potter’s weight crushed Draco, and he could scarcely breathe, but he grabbed onto his strong, muscled arms anyway, unwilling to let him go.

Draco cried out when Potter entered him, because that was what Potter wanted to hear, and Potter’s groan of “Yes, fuck, like that” encouraged him. Potter’s body smothered his own, and Draco’s nipples stood hard and erect where Potter’s chest brushed his own as he moved up and down each time he slammed into Draco’s waiting, ready, eager hole again. 

Draco’s pleasure mounted in his belly, his cock caressed by Potter’s abdomen each time he moved. He thought he could come right here, right now, just by being fucked in the arse alone. Draco turned his head to press his lips into Potter’s tousled hair; he smelled like shampoo and woods and smoke.

Suddenly, Potter’s hips stopped thrusting and he pulled back, panting, untangling Draco’s arms from around his neck and pinning them to the sheets. Draco’s eyes opened wide, and he was suddenly so afraid that he’d done something horribly wrong.

But Potter said nothing, only stared intently into Draco’s eyes as he began to move again.

Three more thrusts, and Draco was coming, crying out as his hips bucked wildly and his arse clenched around Potter’s cock even harder. It was Potter’s gaze that had brought him over the edge; Potter’s eyes, which carried the weight of wants and desires that electrified Draco’s entire self.

Potter looked away, bit his bottom lip, the lip Draco wished he could lick and tug and suck on, and came.

They lay entangled, Draco’s fingers stroking up and down the column of Potter’s spine while Potter caught his breath and pulled out. 

“Stay,” murmured Draco.

Potter sighed. “No.”

“But—”

“Look, Malfoy, this doesn’t mean anything,” said Potter loudly. He was getting angry again. Draco could feel it.

“I know,” said Draco quickly. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“None of this is anything special,” continued Potter, rolling out of bed and pulling on his clothes. “I still hate you. This is just a shag.”

“Okay.”

“I’m leaving.” He left.

Draco lay in bed for a moment before jumping to his feet, grabbing a towel from the back of the door to hide his nakedness, and running to the door.

Potter, who was just about to step out, paused.

“Potter,” he gasped. “Wait.”

“Hurry up.”

“What am I to you, then?”

Potter paused. Draco ran the last few moments through his mind. _Potter. What am I to you, then?_ Internally he winced. Was he still drunk? Potter’s face was unreadable, and Draco quickly moved to amend his words, in case Potter thought he had _feelings_ and stayed away for good this time.

“I just wanted to clarify,” he added, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. “Since we should probably define what this is, you know. Just saying. Nothing…special.”

Potter straightened. “Fine, then,” he said. “You’re—” 

He leaned in close to Draco, and Draco’s eyes widened because _Potter is going to kiss me, he’s going to do it, I don’t believe—_

“—an excellent hole to fuck.”

Draco’s heart sank. He knew he was stupid to anticipate anything different. After all, he was still Potter’s old enemy, unworthy, despicable, a receptacle for Potter’s come and hate and anger.

Still, it was enough to have those things, to have pain rather than nothing at all.

“I see,” said Draco.

Potter opened his mouth when a flash of light from outside distracted them both, momentarily illuminating them both. Potter’s wand was out in an instant; Draco Accio’d his, and it was in his hand a moment later. Both of them stayed still, tense, scanning for movement and finding none.

Potter was the first to relax. “It’s probably nothing, then,” he said. “I’d better go. And you should go inside.”

“All right,” said Draco, clenching his towel tightly in his fist. Potter Disapparated.

Draco lay in bed for a long time afterward, unable to sleep, even though Potter’s hands had just been on him a little while ago and the smell of sex and smoke and musk still lingered in the wrinkled sheets. He grabbed a pillow and hugged it close.

_An excellent hole to fuck_ , Potter had called him.

That was better than being nothing, Draco supposed. At least he plays a part in Potter’s life. At least Potter still looks at him that way, that toe-curling, fiery way that meant Potter _cared_ about him, to some extent.

Draco smiled. A tear rolled from the corner of his eye and into his pillow.

~*~*~

Draco awoke to a sharp pain in his arm. His eyes flew open and he sat up to see an owl poking him with the corner of the letter in its beak, its eyes plaintive.

“Go on, now,” he said. “I haven't any treats for you.”

It glared, tossed the letter onto the foot of the bed, and flew out the window.

At least six or seven other owls were hopping about his room, hooting and leaving droppings, to Draco's horror, fixing their round eyes on him. A pile of assorted letters and packages sat at the end of his bed. Draco sighed; he hadn't the slightest clue why this was happening. 

“Sod off, all of you.”

Once the birds cleared off, Draco reached for the nearest envelope and began to read.

_To Mr. Draco Malfoy,_

_I'd hope that you're currently deeply ashamed of your dreadful moral failings, but I would wager that you are still as monstrous and defiant as you and your family ever were. How dare you take advantage of Harry Potter, and in such a despicable manner? I sincerely hope that Harry, bless his heart, will press charges against you, so that you may spend the rest of your life in Azkaban, where you belong._

“What the fuck,” mumbled Draco. Grabbing a package, he tore it open, and Harry Potter jumped out. “What the fuck,” he repeated.

Potter didn’t respond. He didn’t even look at Draco, but past him. Then, he got to his feet and walked away.

“Potter? Where are you going?” shouted Draco, as Potter walked out of the room. He got to his feet and stumbled after Potter’s form, which made to leave through the front door, but at the last minute turned and walked past Draco, again looking past him rather than at him.

Draco swallowed. “Don’t ignore me,” he called. “Why are you here? What’s going on?” He bit his lip, lost and confused and utterly miserable that as far as Potter was concerned, he didn’t exist. 

Then it clicked. “Oh,” he said, and Summoned his wand. Taking a shaky breath, he said, “ _Riddikulus!_ ”

It turned into a ferret, which chased its tail around in circles until Draco opened the front door a crack and it dashed outside. Shaking his head, he went back upstairs. Perhaps he was still dreaming, or had gotten drunk without realizing it, or was high on some illegal potion, because none of this made sense.

He went back to the package, shaking out the rest of the contents. The first thing that fell out onto his lap was an issue of _Wizards’ Insider._ Glaring at him from the front cover was his own form, naked except for the towel around his hips, and Potter, whose mussed and oversexed appearance left no doubt as to what he had been doing. They were in the doorway of Draco’s flat, lips whispering barely a centimetre apart, and icy droplets of dread began to circulate in Draco’s bloodstream. The photo was awfully lit and his skin looked ghostly white and bleached and Potter’s pupils were red with the glare and that was the flash they’d seen last night.

Frantic, he tore open the letter that accompanied the magazine, and it began to Howl.

_You despicable, disgusting piece of Malfoy scum! Are we adding ‘rapist’ to our list of crimes against humanity? I hope you rot in Azkaban until your bones—_

He Incinerated the Howler, and flipped through the pages to the feature article. According to the writers, a source “who wishes to stay anonymous for her own safety from the potential wrath of those who still threaten the peace” had turned in the incriminating photo, along with other information.

_“I mean, I suspected something was up, since Harry would always go to this place all the time, but it’s not his house, and I’m not a stalker, really I’m not, I’m just very observant,” our unnamed, reliable source told WI._

_“But I could not believe the sounds I heard. I firmly believe that I heard Draco Malfoy—the ex-Death Eater who had hated Harry back in school—raping Harry, and he’s probably put him under Imperious or something, because why else wouldn’t Harry be running away from him?”_

The letters began to blur, and Draco realized that his hand was shaking violently. He threw the magazine to the floor angrily and covered his face with both hands, gripping at his own hair. He tried to calm himself down, to stop hyperventilating, but the sick knot of fear and dread wound itself even tighter in his stomach.

He Incinerated the other packages, in case they contained other charms or curses or Dark objects meant to hurt him, and dug through the rest of the envelopes to search for a letter from Potter, who must know about this by now.

There was no word from Potter, but there was a letter from Goldsworthy— _“Pending further civil and legal investigation into this matter, you are hereby suspended from your position”_ —and from Pansy— _“When were you going to tell us this? Floo me ASAP.”_

“ _Accio_ parchment. _Accio_ quill,” said Draco, trying to keep his voice steady. He penned a quick note to Potter, not caring that his usual impeccable script was replaced with a frantic scrawl:

_Potter, can you Apparate here without anyone seeing? I’ll open my wards to admit you. We should talk about this, get our story straight before talking to anyone outside. –DM_

Once he’d sent the letter off, there was nothing to do but wait. He paced about his flat nervously, his roiling stomach ruling out the possibility of any meals, his pounding pulse and racing thoughts defeating any attempts at rest. 

This was it, he thought with mounting fear; this was the last straw, Potter was probably being suffocated by the press and his fans and it was all Draco’s fault for having to run after him last night and ask him stupid questions. He had no one but himself to blame for scaring Potter away.

Potter would never come by again. Draco would probably never see Potter again, and Potter would never look at him with those terrifying, electrifying green eyes again.

“No,” he whimpered, wrapping his arms around himself. “No, he can’t.”

To keep himself busy, Draco climbed back into bed and began to read the rest of his letters. Once he started, he couldn’t stop—which was all right, because a steady stream of mail kept pouring in throughout the day and into the evening.

_I knew that you and your kind were no good, and I knew that they’d made a mistake letting you back into society—how dare you? How could you?—you’ve corrupted him, and you’ve blackened your own soul—eat slugs—die—kill yourself—kill yourself—kill yourself—_

What a concept.

The letters were hateful, they were often loud, but Draco couldn’t stop himself from poring over each one that crossed his windowsill; they were so morbidly fascinating.

As the sun began to set, he penned another letter. 

_Potter, don’t ignore me. Come over and we can figure this out. –DM_

His tears made the ink run in some places, but he didn’t care that Potter would see how pathetic and needy he was, because he was exactly that.

He waited and waited, but Potter didn’t respond.

“This is it,” said Draco aloud, and to his surprise, a little bit of what felt like relief loosened the knot in his stomach a little bit. “He’s not coming back.”

He knew what that admission meant. It meant that the one person who’d made him feel alive over the last—he didn’t know how long, but it felt like a glorious eternity—had gone. Without Potter, Draco was nothing anymore. He couldn’t go back to his old, mundane life, he _couldn’t_ , not without Potter’s voice moaning dirty and disgusted words in his ear, not without the look on his face and the stare in his eyes when he took Draco and ruined him over and over. That was no life at all.

He penned one more note.

_Potter, please._

He struck a bargain with himself: if Potter replied within half an hour, there would still be hope. If not…

After sitting around for a few more minutes, restless, he Flooed Pansy.

“Merlin, Draco, you look a mess. Thank goodness you’re all right—I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t want to check in case you weren’t feeling…how are you feeling, by the way?” she asked, launching straight to the heart of things.

Draco took a deep breath. “Not too well,” he replied honestly. “If you’ve seen the magazine, I’m sure you know why.”

“Yeah, I can guess.” She sighed. “How’d this come about, anyway?”

“Complicated story. I met him in a club, basically, and we started shagging.”

“Interesting. I trust you’ll tell me the full story—minus the shagging—later. What were they talking about in the article, though? Rape? What’s going on?” She sounded stern.

“Pansy, you can’t possibly believe that,” said Draco quietly, desperately. “No one raped anyone, I promise. I would never do that to him. I—I—” He broke off. 

“What?” asked Pansy. She looked almost…bemused. “You love him?”

“I—” Draco shook his head. “I _need_ him. I can’t do this without him. I need to hear him telling me how much he hates me and how much he wants to fucking break me.” Draco was blabbering like an idiot at this point, like a baby, and he wasn’t crying, he was sweating. “But that won’t happen because he’ll never come by again and it’s all my fault, I let this happen, I was careless—”

“Back the fuck up,” said Pansy sternly, and, for the first time in a long time, a flicker of fear flashed across her face. “He says _what_ to you? Draco, can’t you see?” She was shouting now. “This is bad. This is abuse. Why would you want him near you for another second? You should be the one pressing charges against him!”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand, Pansy,” said Draco, smiling sadly and shaking his head. “But I need him. I can’t do this without him, and he’s not here.” He looked at the clock. “There’s no reason for me to be here anymore. It’s time, and I should go.”

“It’s time—what—hold on, Draco, what are you doing?” Pansy yelled. “Stay here with me, stay here and I’ll tell Theo or Blaise or, hell, Lovegood to get to you and we’ll help you through, just don’t leave—”

“Thanks, Pansy. I’m sorry.”

Draco pulled his head out of the fireplace, and the flames dimmed down. He went into his bathroom and lay down in the tub. For a minute he lay there, listening to his own breaths echo against the walls.

Release was imminent. He closed his eyes and remembered how he’d felt on that night so many years ago, when he had waited for the blood to drain from his body because he had no life left to live, and how he’d gotten out alive because he’d fed himself a lie, and now Potter was gone, and Draco’s existence was worth nothing again—

“ _Petrificus totalus_ ,” he whispered, and felt his body go stiff as a board.

He gathered up all the strength in his mind.

_Kill yourself._ Boggart-Potter, looking past him, never at him.

_Aguamenti,_ he thought.

The tub filled with water. To his pleasant surprise, it was warm, soothing him, relaxing him. It trickled into his eyes, filled up his nostrils, his lungs.

At last, he thought, as blackness occluded his vision, he was free.

~*~*~

Death felt like a mattress over his legs and a mask over his face. Death smelled like honeysuckle-scented air. He opened his eyes.

He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t even kill himself properly.

Draco sighed and shook his head at the realization that he was very much alive and probably in a hospital bed at St. Mungo’s. They were giving him some sort of sweet-smelling gas to breathe and kept him warm under a sizeable pile of blankets. Beside him, Pansy, who seemed to have dozed off, jerked awake when he shifted.

“Draco,” she breathed, and relief filled her tired face. “You’re alive. Merlin, you look terrible.”

“Sounds familiar,” croaked Draco, and grinned, and Pansy tried to grin too. Draco pulled the mask over his head, setting it down on the bedside table, so he could speak more easily.

Then, Draco’s smile faded as he remembered why he was here. Potter and him and _Wizards’ Insider_. Potter, ignoring him. The boggart. _Aguamenti._

“Theo and I arrived just in time,” Pansy was saying. “We rushed you to St. Mungo’s, and it was horrible, the way they had to get the water out of your system, but—”

A nurse rapped on the door and stuck her head in. “Mr. Malfoy, I’m glad you’re awake. You have a visitor—Mr. Harry Potter.”

In a flash, Pansy was on her feet. “He’s not coming in here,” she snarled, pushing aside the rather miffed-looking nurse. A moment later, Draco could hear tense voices snapping at each other outside the door, rising in intensity.

“It’s all right, Pansy,” he called. “You can let him in.”

Pansy marched back in, red-faced. “You sure? This wanker nearly killed you, Draco, he—”

“It’s all right.”

She pursed her lips. “Fine,” she spat. “Yell for me if he bothers you, and I’ll hex him to the Isle of Man.” She left, and Potter came in after her.

Draco closed his eyes. He couldn’t bear to look at the emptiness in Potter’s green, glowing orbs, the vacant expression when there had once been something so intense and heartfelt, even if it ended in Draco screaming out in pain.

“Draco,” said Potter. He heard faint thuds next to his bed. A moment later, firm hands grasped his own.

“Draco, I’m so, so sorry.” Warm lips pressed against his fingers.

He had to turn to look, then, he couldn’t help it. Potter was kneeling at the side of his bed, kissing Draco’s hand, looking so, so tired. Draco reached over with his other hand to brush his thumb across the dark shadows under Potter’s eyes, and Potter leaned into his touch. His eyes still held a flicker of want, a flicker of desire, and Draco swallowed, looking away again.

“Why are you here?” he asked instead. “I thought you said you hated me.”

“That was a lie,” said Potter, squeezing his hand. “I was hoping, all this time, that you could tell it was a lie—but I was stupid, because how could you know?” He kissed Draco’s hand again. “I treated you so badly.”

“You’re confusing me,” said Draco.

“I didn’t want you to hurt,” explained Potter, then rushed to amend his words at Draco’s cocked eyebrow. “All right, I did at first, because I was still angry, even after all this time, but then I could see that I was wrong to hold it against you still. But I couldn’t stop hurting you, because you would bend and you would break for me and the way you _looked_ at me like you needed me and no one else—I craved that, I needed it.” 

“Go on,” said Draco.

“I’m sorry,” mumbled Potter. “And I said all those terrible things to you because I couldn’t admit to myself that I wanted you. I hoped that those things would make you push me away, but you never did. And you let me hurt you again and again, and it felt so good, and I was too weak and too stupid to stop.”

Draco closed his eyes, not wanting to let himself hope. “I tried to drown myself because you wouldn’t answer my letters.”

“I’m sorry,” said Potter. “I couldn’t think of what to say, and I tried to handle the media by myself.”

Draco nodded, then said, “I love you.”

“No, you don’t.” Potter was holding Draco tightly enough to hurt, grinding the bones of his hand together. “You’re obsessed with me. That’s not love.”

“Don’t tell me what I feel.”

“It’s unhealthy,” insisted Potter. “I’ve seen the way you look at me. It’s not true love if you need me and you can’t make the choice to be with me.”

“Fuck it all to hell. God damn it,” whispered Draco. “You really have to make this hard, don’t you? Just say yes or no.”

Potter leaned in and pressed his lips to Draco’s. Draco leaned into the kiss, and Potter’s tongue brushed his, ever so slightly, before he pulled away.

“In my own twisted, sick way,” said Potter, his voice choked, “I do.”

Draco felt tears pricking at his eyes. “Then let’s start now,” he said quickly. “Let’s stop hurting each other and start over now.”

“We can’t,” said Potter, and Draco deflated, because it always came down to this, because Potter would always hold the power because he could bring Draco down with a tiny change of heart. “You need help. _I_ need help. You can’t keep needing me, and I can’t keep wanting to bring you pain. Otherwise, we’ll just keep bruising each other until we break.”

“I think you should leave,” said Draco quietly, turning his face away to hide the first tear that slipped silently, traitorously, from his eye.

“Draco,” said Potter.

“I’ll call Pansy.”

“Fine,” said Potter, and left.

~*~*~

Draco slept through the next two days. His sleep was restless, interspersed with moments of alertness and frequently haunted by tears and lips and green eyes.

On the third day, when he was awake enough to stomach some food, Pansy brought him the _Prophet_ and sat next to him silently as he unfolded it. On the front cover stood Potter, hands in his pockets, looking worn but determined as he stared straight into the camera.

_…Potter has maintained that the allegations of rape are untrue, and stated multiple times to several different sources that he will not press charges of any sort, as well as expressed his desire to sue Wizards’ Insider for slander and defamation._

_“Draco has never hurt me,” said Potter. “Well, that’s not true—we’ve hurt each other, bruised each other in the way only we could. But I’ve hurt him badly, so much more than I ever expected, and I need his forgiveness. Draco, if you’re listening or reading this, I want you to know that I love you, and I was insane and driven by anger, by demons, to have done what I did to you. We both need to heal, and I hope that we can do it together.”_

He read the quote twice, soaking in every word, and quietly folded the paper on Potter’s serious face.

“That tosser’s got a way with words,” acknowledged Pansy, grudgingly.

~*~*~

When Draco was fully recovered from his near-drowning, he signed up for twelve weeks with a Mind-Healer for clinical obsession. Separately, Harry Potter signed up for eight weeks with a Mind-Healer for anger management issues.

Occasionally, Draco’s Mind-Healer would give him parchment and a quill and tell him to write a letter to Potter—no, Harry, for Draco was trying to think of him as Harry. She told him that they would make sure that Harry would read it, and no one except Harry, but that Harry would not be able to respond. 

So Draco wrote. He wrote about the accommodations in the Mental Health ward and how scratchy his bedsheets were. He called Harry a wanker and a fucker and told him he loved him. He wrote about the weather and about the summer he’d spent with Lucius and Narcissa in Austria when he was ten and his opinions on journalism ethics in this day and age.

Slowly, it stopped bothering him that Harry would not reply. Slowly, the constant burn of Harry’s green eyes against his skull faded, replaced with something cooler and more soothing, the wisp of hope that Harry loved him still, and that became sustenance enough for Draco.

Harry would read those letters, lips moving to form each word but making no sound. He would read them again and again, wondering what Draco was really thinking about when he wrote these things. When Draco mentioned Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, he felt anger bubble up inside him and he longed to dig his fingers into someone’s flesh and make them hurt, but his Mind-Healer took out the list he’d made, and he would stop.

It was Healer Briggs who had suggested that he make these lists, and he had listened. For ten minutes, explained Briggs, he was to write down everything about Draco that was meaningful to him. “Take that as you will,” he had said. “It’s your list, after all.”

So Harry wrote about Draco’s snark and sass, which had faded as he grew older, he guessed. He wrote about Draco’s voice and his hands, slender but strong when they dug into Harry’s back. He wrote about Draco’s strength to rebuild his life even when he had been on the brink of ruin, and he wrote about the scars on Draco’s forearm that he had noticed, and he wrote about Draco’s grey eyes and perfect prick and warm body.

Sometimes he cried as he wrote, and Healer Briggs told him that it was all right to cry.

When Draco finished his twelve weeks, his Mind-Healer told him that she believed he was completely healed, but relapses weren’t uncommon, and he should come back immediately if he felt the need. He nodded, signed a release form, and was free to leave.

“Oh, and Draco? I believe Mr. Potter is in the waiting room, waiting to see you, if you’d like,” his Healer threw over her shoulder nonchalantly as she left the room.

Draco gathered up the rest of his personal things into an Extension Charmed-bag and walked out the door, down the hall, and—taking a deep breath—into the waiting room. 

Harry was waiting for him. He was wearing robes, and looked clean-shaven, with his hair combed back. He jumped to his feet when he saw Draco, grinning in a nearly stupid, yet endearing way.

Draco stopped in his tracks and closed his eyes, waiting for the familiar surges of _need need need_ and desperation to wash over him again, to render him helpless in Harry’s presence.

They never came. Instead, Draco only felt gentle, warm gratitude that Harry was still here and still loved him, and in an instant, he knew that he still felt the same.

He opened his eyes and smiled back.

**Author's Note:**

> Content Warnings: Attempted suicide, implied depression, dubious/non-consensual sex, rough sex, humiliation, obsession, anger management issues, loneliness, self-loathing, self-harm, therapy.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment for the author here or on LIVEJOURNAL ♥


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